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No Politics but Class Politics
Denouncing racism and celebrating diversity have become central to progressive politics. For many on the left, it seems, social justice would consist of an equitable distribution of wealth, power and esteem among racial groups. But as Adolph Reed Jr. and Walter Benn Michaels argue in this incisive collection of essays, the emphasis here is tragically misplaced. Not only can a fixation with racial disparities distract from the pervasive influence of class, it can actually end up legitimising economic inequality. As Reed and Michaels put it, “racism is real and anti-racism is both admirable and necessary, but extant racism isn’t what principally produces our inequality and anti-racism won’t eliminate it”.
No Politics but Class Politics gathers together Reed and Michaels’s recent essays on inequality, along with a newly commissioned interview with the authors and an illuminating foreword by Daniel Zamora and Anton Jäger. These writings eschew the sloppy thinking and moral posturing that too often characterise discussions of race and class in favour of clear-eyed social, cultural and historical analysis. Reed and Michaels make the case here for a genuinely radical a politics which aspires not to the establishment of a demographically representative social elite, but instead to economic justice for everyone.
No Politics but Class Politics gathers together Reed and Michaels’s recent essays on inequality, along with a newly commissioned interview with the authors and an illuminating foreword by Daniel Zamora and Anton Jäger. These writings eschew the sloppy thinking and moral posturing that too often characterise discussions of race and class in favour of clear-eyed social, cultural and historical analysis. Reed and Michaels make the case here for a genuinely radical a politics which aspires not to the establishment of a demographically representative social elite, but instead to economic justice for everyone.
390 pages, Paperback
Published May 23, 2023
24 people are currently reading
946 people want to read
About the author
Adolph L. Reed Jr.
21 books136 followersAdolph Leonard Reed Jr. is an American professor emeritus of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in studies of issues of racism and U.S. politics. He has taught at Yale, Northwestern, and the New School for Social Research and he has written on racial and economic inequality.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
December 23, 2023
No Politics but Class Politics is a disparate collection of smart and interesting essays united by a few big ideas, some of which I happen to agree with but others I don’t. The authors make three major arguments: There are greater inequalities within races than between races. Both left and right have attempted to elide class as a useful vector for understanding social relations in favor of identity politics, which cannot form the basis of an enduring political coalition. Finally, the sanctification of anti-racist politics, even as discrimination against the poor remains codified within laws and social systems, has served to hinder the wider goal of economic equality.
For every argument I found convincing, however, I was equally frustrated and disappointed by others. The authors certainly demonstrate their immense erudition, sophisticated (though sometimes specious) reasoning, and remarkable marshaling of facts, all of which align with their impressive academic credentials, but I found that their grasp of economic matters isn’t quite as nuanced as I had hoped. In particular, the authors have an annoying tendency to ascribe every last problem to the hegemonic influence of neoliberalism and capitalism. But neoliberalism doesn't hold much sway with me as an explanation because it's poorly defined and simply assumed to be true. On the rare occasion when they attempt to address the issue less obliquely, they define it as rampant privatization, anti-unionism, and privation of public services; at other times it's defined as capitalism with its gloves off; or even simply private initiative (at one point, the author castigates the silly revenge fantasy Django Unchained as a neoliberal construct because, by showing one man freeing himself from the bounds of slavery, independent of the wider social and economic context in which the entire system operated, it characterizes the regime of racial hierarchy in the “superficial terms of interpersonal transactions;" but it seems to me that the movie just wants to indulge in the most outrageous revenge possible and isn't trying to make a wider point about the economic system).
Regardless of how it’s defined, the term quickly loses its practical utility, because it’s not at all clear that neoliberalism is the massive hegemonic serpent that the authors suggest. The economic writer Noah Smith has made the argument that the real-world implementation of the neoliberal project, at least in terms of massive deregulation and tax cuts, is actually far more limited in scope than its detractors envision; the fall in union activity, while real, was driven by many complex factors that predate the 1980s. Therefore despite the allure of “neoliberalism” as an explanatory phenomenon, it is not entirely clear that it's responsible for wage stagnation over the past few decades. A few recent economic papers have even suggested that inequality has barely grown since the 1960s; and to the extent that inequality shows up in statistics, it's mostly a function of other arbitrary factors like how wealth is counted. I'm not arguing that's correct, just that the so-called opponents of neoliberalism (especially cultural commentators and non-economically-trained intellectuals) rarely engage with the economic literature and simply take the "growing inequality" story as self-evident.
By extension, the authors also exaggerate the influences of neoliberalism as they've defined it on mainstream economic thought. As they write in the conclusion, “The extent to which even nominal leftists ignore this reality [of low wages] is an expression of the extent of neoliberalism’s ideological victory over the last four decades.” And yet if neoliberalism is supposedly so hegemonic, why do so many Democrats argue in favor of greater minimum wages and union participation? It’s striking, for example, how much the authors’ criticisms about the class inequality of elite American colleges align and overlap with many self-described neoliberals and capitalists. Matthew Yglesias is quoted in this volume in a manner that suggests he believes in the triumph of racial equality over class egalitarianism, but on his Slow Boring blog, he has also written lengthy posts about the idea that we should take seriously MLK Jr.’s aspiration for class struggle, which we should differentiate from “both the washed-out version of MLK that you can from conservatives and the Tema Okun version of racial justice politics that has become faddish recently.” Yglesias argues that we should place more emphasis on poverty reduction programs like the Child Tax Credit — ostensibly race-blind solutions that also serve to make the country more economically equal across all demographic swaths — and less on microaggressions and diversity training.
Perhaps as a consequence of the book’s fragmented format, the authors are fundamentally unclear about whether the ultimate goal is wealth redistribution or whether the complete reorganization of the economy holds primacy in their thesis. The final essay suggests the former, but at one point Reed writes, “If the historical truth of capitalist class power is that, without direct, explicit and relentless, zero-sum challenge to its foundations in a social order built on its priority and dominance in the social division of labor, we will never be able to win more than a shifting around of the material burdens of inequality, reallocating them and recalibrating their incidence among different populations.” If that argument is convincing to you, then you may discover much to enjoy in this book. But if you don’t necessarily evince these anti-capitalist leanings, then you may be frustrated that the authors make no effort to elaborate on their ideal economic system very deeply, nor do they bother to prove that such a system would produce greater material gains even for the typical worker in whose interests they are advocating. Nor do they really contend with political reality (if comparatively small changes in wealth transfer sometimes provoke widespread intransigence, then how much harder would it be to completely transform the entire economic system). Moreover, there are things we can do to the economy, such as zoning deregulation or energy distribution reform, that have nothing to do with either overt wealth distribution or a root-and-branch transformation of the entire economic system. Clearer thinking on these matters or a greater ideological diversity of voices would have been appreciated in this collection. Overall, if the authors had just restricted their fundamental thesis to the primacy of class over identity politics and dispensed with their clunky rendering of neoliberalist ideology, I might have rated this book even higher.
For every argument I found convincing, however, I was equally frustrated and disappointed by others. The authors certainly demonstrate their immense erudition, sophisticated (though sometimes specious) reasoning, and remarkable marshaling of facts, all of which align with their impressive academic credentials, but I found that their grasp of economic matters isn’t quite as nuanced as I had hoped. In particular, the authors have an annoying tendency to ascribe every last problem to the hegemonic influence of neoliberalism and capitalism. But neoliberalism doesn't hold much sway with me as an explanation because it's poorly defined and simply assumed to be true. On the rare occasion when they attempt to address the issue less obliquely, they define it as rampant privatization, anti-unionism, and privation of public services; at other times it's defined as capitalism with its gloves off; or even simply private initiative (at one point, the author castigates the silly revenge fantasy Django Unchained as a neoliberal construct because, by showing one man freeing himself from the bounds of slavery, independent of the wider social and economic context in which the entire system operated, it characterizes the regime of racial hierarchy in the “superficial terms of interpersonal transactions;" but it seems to me that the movie just wants to indulge in the most outrageous revenge possible and isn't trying to make a wider point about the economic system).
Regardless of how it’s defined, the term quickly loses its practical utility, because it’s not at all clear that neoliberalism is the massive hegemonic serpent that the authors suggest. The economic writer Noah Smith has made the argument that the real-world implementation of the neoliberal project, at least in terms of massive deregulation and tax cuts, is actually far more limited in scope than its detractors envision; the fall in union activity, while real, was driven by many complex factors that predate the 1980s. Therefore despite the allure of “neoliberalism” as an explanatory phenomenon, it is not entirely clear that it's responsible for wage stagnation over the past few decades. A few recent economic papers have even suggested that inequality has barely grown since the 1960s; and to the extent that inequality shows up in statistics, it's mostly a function of other arbitrary factors like how wealth is counted. I'm not arguing that's correct, just that the so-called opponents of neoliberalism (especially cultural commentators and non-economically-trained intellectuals) rarely engage with the economic literature and simply take the "growing inequality" story as self-evident.
By extension, the authors also exaggerate the influences of neoliberalism as they've defined it on mainstream economic thought. As they write in the conclusion, “The extent to which even nominal leftists ignore this reality [of low wages] is an expression of the extent of neoliberalism’s ideological victory over the last four decades.” And yet if neoliberalism is supposedly so hegemonic, why do so many Democrats argue in favor of greater minimum wages and union participation? It’s striking, for example, how much the authors’ criticisms about the class inequality of elite American colleges align and overlap with many self-described neoliberals and capitalists. Matthew Yglesias is quoted in this volume in a manner that suggests he believes in the triumph of racial equality over class egalitarianism, but on his Slow Boring blog, he has also written lengthy posts about the idea that we should take seriously MLK Jr.’s aspiration for class struggle, which we should differentiate from “both the washed-out version of MLK that you can from conservatives and the Tema Okun version of racial justice politics that has become faddish recently.” Yglesias argues that we should place more emphasis on poverty reduction programs like the Child Tax Credit — ostensibly race-blind solutions that also serve to make the country more economically equal across all demographic swaths — and less on microaggressions and diversity training.
Perhaps as a consequence of the book’s fragmented format, the authors are fundamentally unclear about whether the ultimate goal is wealth redistribution or whether the complete reorganization of the economy holds primacy in their thesis. The final essay suggests the former, but at one point Reed writes, “If the historical truth of capitalist class power is that, without direct, explicit and relentless, zero-sum challenge to its foundations in a social order built on its priority and dominance in the social division of labor, we will never be able to win more than a shifting around of the material burdens of inequality, reallocating them and recalibrating their incidence among different populations.” If that argument is convincing to you, then you may discover much to enjoy in this book. But if you don’t necessarily evince these anti-capitalist leanings, then you may be frustrated that the authors make no effort to elaborate on their ideal economic system very deeply, nor do they bother to prove that such a system would produce greater material gains even for the typical worker in whose interests they are advocating. Nor do they really contend with political reality (if comparatively small changes in wealth transfer sometimes provoke widespread intransigence, then how much harder would it be to completely transform the entire economic system). Moreover, there are things we can do to the economy, such as zoning deregulation or energy distribution reform, that have nothing to do with either overt wealth distribution or a root-and-branch transformation of the entire economic system. Clearer thinking on these matters or a greater ideological diversity of voices would have been appreciated in this collection. Overall, if the authors had just restricted their fundamental thesis to the primacy of class over identity politics and dispensed with their clunky rendering of neoliberalist ideology, I might have rated this book even higher.
January 10, 2024
This book is a collection of already-published essays that present a thesis I was not aware of, but one that resonates strongly with some of the hesitation I've felt about buying wholeheartedly into the current social-justice movements. It has clarified and helped me make sense of my own struggle to articulate why the current progressive movement in the US feels so toothless and impotent, not withstanding its robust "social justice" bona fides.
The basic argument is that an antiracist agenda is harmful to the longer term project of actual equality. The reason for this is that antiracism has taken over from class politics as the main focus of a progressive political action strategy. These authors don't mince words when talking about the real damage that this form of identity politics has done to a viable left movement in the US. They argue that the misplaced focus on antiracism needs to be replaced by a doubling down on class politics, with a focus on concrete, achievable reforms that benefit the working class. They show how the civil rights movement was successful not because it focused on racism, but because it presented a real political program that would benefit the working class. This focus on the movement has been diluted as a simply race-based activism, with the history of slavery rewritten to focus on the racism, rather than the economic social relations that were the focus of slavery. Racism, not a wealthy ruling class, is the driving force behind inequality in the US, the current narrative says. The authors are careful to note that racism is abhorrent and should be fought against, but it is not the main reason that black people have worse outcomes across the board than whites. Wealth inequality is the driver.
They also argue that antiracism serves the interest of the current form of neoliberalism, championed by Democrats and corporations (with Obama being the perfect example of a toothless "progressive" agenda), because it does nothing to change the exploitation of workers, only shuffles the exploited's races around. Jeff Bezos doesn't care if his exploited workers are black or white or latino, which is why he pledged some millions to BLM. But if anyone starts agitating for union organizing, the retribution is swift. Focus on racism, therefore quite conveniently pushes any discussion of class out of the picture. Antiracism is also used as a bludgeon by "progressives" who use it as a way to gatekeep how progressive someone actually is. Any discussion of class politics without identity politics is viewed by many on the left as racist and sexist. Intersectionality reigns supreme. No matter that a class agenda would do more for the causes advanced by identity politics than the token reforms sought by today's progressives.
Michaels and Reed make the compelling case that identity politics has deadended real leftist action and political planning and without a return to militant working-class politics, the US will never have a viable left political movement. It is provocative and confrontational, but essential to anyone who considers themselves a progressive. If you find yourself caught up in self-imposed antiracist training or poring over Robin DiAngelo books while trying to agitate for more black people and women to be given corporate CEO jobs, you might be focusing on the wrong thing. According to the authors this brand of social justice would mean that "society would be just if one per cent of the population controlled ninety per cent of the resources so long as thirteen per cent of the one per cent were black, fourteen per cent were Hispanic, half were women, etc."
The basic argument is that an antiracist agenda is harmful to the longer term project of actual equality. The reason for this is that antiracism has taken over from class politics as the main focus of a progressive political action strategy. These authors don't mince words when talking about the real damage that this form of identity politics has done to a viable left movement in the US. They argue that the misplaced focus on antiracism needs to be replaced by a doubling down on class politics, with a focus on concrete, achievable reforms that benefit the working class. They show how the civil rights movement was successful not because it focused on racism, but because it presented a real political program that would benefit the working class. This focus on the movement has been diluted as a simply race-based activism, with the history of slavery rewritten to focus on the racism, rather than the economic social relations that were the focus of slavery. Racism, not a wealthy ruling class, is the driving force behind inequality in the US, the current narrative says. The authors are careful to note that racism is abhorrent and should be fought against, but it is not the main reason that black people have worse outcomes across the board than whites. Wealth inequality is the driver.
They also argue that antiracism serves the interest of the current form of neoliberalism, championed by Democrats and corporations (with Obama being the perfect example of a toothless "progressive" agenda), because it does nothing to change the exploitation of workers, only shuffles the exploited's races around. Jeff Bezos doesn't care if his exploited workers are black or white or latino, which is why he pledged some millions to BLM. But if anyone starts agitating for union organizing, the retribution is swift. Focus on racism, therefore quite conveniently pushes any discussion of class out of the picture. Antiracism is also used as a bludgeon by "progressives" who use it as a way to gatekeep how progressive someone actually is. Any discussion of class politics without identity politics is viewed by many on the left as racist and sexist. Intersectionality reigns supreme. No matter that a class agenda would do more for the causes advanced by identity politics than the token reforms sought by today's progressives.
Michaels and Reed make the compelling case that identity politics has deadended real leftist action and political planning and without a return to militant working-class politics, the US will never have a viable left political movement. It is provocative and confrontational, but essential to anyone who considers themselves a progressive. If you find yourself caught up in self-imposed antiracist training or poring over Robin DiAngelo books while trying to agitate for more black people and women to be given corporate CEO jobs, you might be focusing on the wrong thing. According to the authors this brand of social justice would mean that "society would be just if one per cent of the population controlled ninety per cent of the resources so long as thirteen per cent of the one per cent were black, fourteen per cent were Hispanic, half were women, etc."
July 28, 2023
I found these collection of essays very thought provoking & necessary. While somewhat long at times, these essays were well researched & presented in a concise manner. These scholars did not back away from some of the ugly truths associated with race, class & sex. Quite frankly, we need to have more of these conversations in regards to race, class, sex & how they impact inequality.
November 13, 2025
No Politics but Class Politics is a sharp intervention into contemporary debates on identity, inequality, and the future of the Left. Adolph Reed Jr. and Walter Benn Michaels deliver a forceful argument that the left’s overinvestment in identity-based politics has sidelined the only politics capable of transforming society at its roots: class politics.
The authors argue that it's a mistake to frame a politics of identity and a politics of class as opposing forces or engaged in some sort of trade-off. Instead, they insist that the prevailing focus on anti-discrimination is itself a form of class politics - specifically, a kind of class apologism. It’s a politics that benefits those already climbing the social ladder, offering symbolic victories for a few while leaving the material conditions of the many untouched. As they put it: "You know that you live in a society that loves neoliberalism when the fact that some people of colour are rich and powerful is regarded as a victory for all the people of colour who aren't."
Reed and Michaels push back against the idea that simply expanding representation at the top constitutes justice. They don’t reject the fight against racism or sexism - in fact, they insist on opposing all forms of oppression - but they are clear: if our goal is to reduce inequality, then class must be at the center. We can't understand race and gender without class, and we can't understand class without race and gender - but when it comes to interpreting and addressing economic inequality, class is the fundamental category. You can fight discrimination until hell freezes over, they argue, but it won't shrink the chasm between a minimum-wage worker and a six-figure earner.
This perspective is more crucial than ever in a political landscape where the Right has monopolised identity to advance its own brand of exclusionary identitarianism. The authors, seasoned voices on the Left, offer a much-needed corrective, reclaiming the terrain of economic justice from both progressive neoliberals and reactionary nationalism. It's a vital book, deeply grounded in a Left tradition that knows the real enemy is not who we are, but who holds power.
The authors argue that it's a mistake to frame a politics of identity and a politics of class as opposing forces or engaged in some sort of trade-off. Instead, they insist that the prevailing focus on anti-discrimination is itself a form of class politics - specifically, a kind of class apologism. It’s a politics that benefits those already climbing the social ladder, offering symbolic victories for a few while leaving the material conditions of the many untouched. As they put it: "You know that you live in a society that loves neoliberalism when the fact that some people of colour are rich and powerful is regarded as a victory for all the people of colour who aren't."
Reed and Michaels push back against the idea that simply expanding representation at the top constitutes justice. They don’t reject the fight against racism or sexism - in fact, they insist on opposing all forms of oppression - but they are clear: if our goal is to reduce inequality, then class must be at the center. We can't understand race and gender without class, and we can't understand class without race and gender - but when it comes to interpreting and addressing economic inequality, class is the fundamental category. You can fight discrimination until hell freezes over, they argue, but it won't shrink the chasm between a minimum-wage worker and a six-figure earner.
This perspective is more crucial than ever in a political landscape where the Right has monopolised identity to advance its own brand of exclusionary identitarianism. The authors, seasoned voices on the Left, offer a much-needed corrective, reclaiming the terrain of economic justice from both progressive neoliberals and reactionary nationalism. It's a vital book, deeply grounded in a Left tradition that knows the real enemy is not who we are, but who holds power.
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June 7, 2023Have read:
-- Marx, Race, and Neoliberalism
-- The Trouble with Diversifying the Faculty
-- The Political Economy of Anti-Racism
-- Django Unchained, or, The Help
-- Interview One
-- The Trouble With Disparity
-- Marx, Race, and Neoliberalism
-- The Trouble with Diversifying the Faculty
-- The Political Economy of Anti-Racism
-- Django Unchained, or, The Help
-- Interview One
-- The Trouble With Disparity
January 31, 2024
A compelling argument. Readers in a hurry might start with the conclusion, which spells out the thesis quite clearly.
April 11, 2025
Walter Benn Michaels and Adolph Reed Jr. have been pushing back against identity politics for years - Benn Michaels "The Trouble with Diversity" is a classic in the genre (see my review).
This book is a collection of recent essays published by the two, separately, followed by four interviews of both together with editors Anton Jager and Daniel Zamora. The interviews tie the essays together and provide a platform for Michaels and Reed Jr. to connect and discuss their ideas - they have known each other for years, and the work of both influences the other, but this isn't a 'true' collaboration in the sense of them writing together.
As a collection of essays, some will hit more directly for different readers. Some of these essays are relatively specific - Benn Michaels writes about the 'class aesthetic' demonstrated by several photographers I'd never heard of. But when Reed Jr. writes about "Django Unchained", a movie I have enjoyed and rewatched, the essay landed better for me, despite my disagreeing with him on several points.
Thematically, the essays share a number of concepts. Michaels and especially Reed Jr. are Marxists, as one might guess from the title, and both share the insight that 'identity politics' - of the sort referred to as 'woke', or under the umbrella of DEI or CRT - is nothing but a neoliberal 'solution' to class inequality.
In other words, wealthy neoliberal elites in business, education, politics, etc are not interested in reforming capitalism, but rather ensuring that the top echelon of earners demonstrate diversity. As both authors note, ensuring the top tier of earners is diverse does nothing to address economic inequality overall.
Reed Jr. has the more historical content, and he explores some of the points of divergence from past civil rights movements and the current iteration of identity-driven activists. He is encyclopedic in his knowledge here, and castigating when he notes the hypocrisy of many modern activists viewing themselves as continuing the noble tradition of the likes of MLK.
Michaels, the English professor, is the more engaging writer, although I might just be showing my own biases here as an English teacher. His essay "The Trouble with Diversifying the Faculty" is my favourite of the collection, again possibly due to my interest in the subject.
There is some repetition, due to the nature of the collection, but the editors have done a fine job here, selecting vital, thematically linked essays, providing a valuable introduction, and conducting the interviews which serve to tie the project together.
Any compilation runs the risk of hit-and-miss for the reader, but given the two thinkers involved here, even the 'lesser' essays are interesting. And at it's best, this is some of the finest writing criticizing identity politics from the left that I've encountered.
Often, the best of this type of work comes from heterodox thinkers that don't fit neatly on the traditional political spectrum, and are likely found in the middle / centre-right.
By insisting on "No Politics but Class Politics", Michaels and Reed Jr. reveal themselves far more connected to the spirit and tradition of 20th century activism than the 'race reductionists' they lambaste.
Anyone interested in academic, yet accessible, essays on identity politics will find much to like here, as will fans of either author. Marxists and the Marx-adjacent will find rich content. Open-minded woke identitarians should consider this as well, but be warned, these leftists are known for alienating the left.
This book is a collection of recent essays published by the two, separately, followed by four interviews of both together with editors Anton Jager and Daniel Zamora. The interviews tie the essays together and provide a platform for Michaels and Reed Jr. to connect and discuss their ideas - they have known each other for years, and the work of both influences the other, but this isn't a 'true' collaboration in the sense of them writing together.
As a collection of essays, some will hit more directly for different readers. Some of these essays are relatively specific - Benn Michaels writes about the 'class aesthetic' demonstrated by several photographers I'd never heard of. But when Reed Jr. writes about "Django Unchained", a movie I have enjoyed and rewatched, the essay landed better for me, despite my disagreeing with him on several points.
Thematically, the essays share a number of concepts. Michaels and especially Reed Jr. are Marxists, as one might guess from the title, and both share the insight that 'identity politics' - of the sort referred to as 'woke', or under the umbrella of DEI or CRT - is nothing but a neoliberal 'solution' to class inequality.
In other words, wealthy neoliberal elites in business, education, politics, etc are not interested in reforming capitalism, but rather ensuring that the top echelon of earners demonstrate diversity. As both authors note, ensuring the top tier of earners is diverse does nothing to address economic inequality overall.
Reed Jr. has the more historical content, and he explores some of the points of divergence from past civil rights movements and the current iteration of identity-driven activists. He is encyclopedic in his knowledge here, and castigating when he notes the hypocrisy of many modern activists viewing themselves as continuing the noble tradition of the likes of MLK.
Michaels, the English professor, is the more engaging writer, although I might just be showing my own biases here as an English teacher. His essay "The Trouble with Diversifying the Faculty" is my favourite of the collection, again possibly due to my interest in the subject.
There is some repetition, due to the nature of the collection, but the editors have done a fine job here, selecting vital, thematically linked essays, providing a valuable introduction, and conducting the interviews which serve to tie the project together.
Any compilation runs the risk of hit-and-miss for the reader, but given the two thinkers involved here, even the 'lesser' essays are interesting. And at it's best, this is some of the finest writing criticizing identity politics from the left that I've encountered.
Often, the best of this type of work comes from heterodox thinkers that don't fit neatly on the traditional political spectrum, and are likely found in the middle / centre-right.
By insisting on "No Politics but Class Politics", Michaels and Reed Jr. reveal themselves far more connected to the spirit and tradition of 20th century activism than the 'race reductionists' they lambaste.
Anyone interested in academic, yet accessible, essays on identity politics will find much to like here, as will fans of either author. Marxists and the Marx-adjacent will find rich content. Open-minded woke identitarians should consider this as well, but be warned, these leftists are known for alienating the left.
September 5, 2023
Mostly analytically and politically maddening, occasionally turgid and incoherent, with a few brilliant and perceptive insights.
Their work has probably no more than three strengths. First, they develop a robust critique of liberal individualist, "disparitarian" formulations of anti-racism that do not challenge -- and indeed naturalize -- the ways that capitalism systemically generates exploitation and injustice for working class majorities. Second, like Cedric Johnson, they rightly undermine essentialist, homogenizing claims of racial unity that posit shared racial identification as equivalent to shared material interest and conceal increasingly bifurcated intra-racial class differentiation. And third, they contest dehistoricizing, unidimensional understandings of racism and white supremacy that disarticulate ideologies of racial hierarchy from their material bases in labor exploitation and regimes of capital accumulation.
However, their analysis has two primary weaknesses. First, they conflate liberal and materialist, structural theories of racism (and strategies of anti-racism). They are... very different. Analyzing how racial differentiation generates uneven distributional patterns of material and symbolic advantages is distinct from framings that focus on individual attitudes and intentions; and strategies of anti-racism that focus on how to redistribute power, wealth and resources are distinct from "anti-disparitarian" ones that focus solely on creating a colorblind meritocracy where the harms upon which capitalist societies are predicated are proportionally distributed along racial lines (such that disparities are dissolved). Second, they eject socially designated and institutionally reproduced racial status from their explanatory framework. In their view, race is not a causal factor in determining life chances and outcomes. They both analogize race, for instance, to "unicorns," thus rendering invisible the causal effects that racial hierarchies produce for differently racialized groups. This entails that they fail to account for the causally efficacious material dimensions of racism: how racial difference (among other modes of hierarchical differentiation) structures uneven access to life-sustaining goods such as healthcare, employment and housing in ways that produce unequal outcomes and forms of structural vulnerability stratified by race. Of course, race is not the only explanatory factor, and we should recognize that outcomes are significantly over-determined by other axes of inequality, such as class and citizenship status. But Reed and Michaels consistently throw the "materialist, structural theory of racism (and anti-racist praxis)" baby out with the "liberal and neoliberal theory of racism (and rhetorically militant but substantively reactionary anti-racism)" bathwater, which does irreparable analytical damage for any theory or praxis of emancipatory social transformation. Ultimately, what they offer is a bad, reductionist class politics.
Their work has probably no more than three strengths. First, they develop a robust critique of liberal individualist, "disparitarian" formulations of anti-racism that do not challenge -- and indeed naturalize -- the ways that capitalism systemically generates exploitation and injustice for working class majorities. Second, like Cedric Johnson, they rightly undermine essentialist, homogenizing claims of racial unity that posit shared racial identification as equivalent to shared material interest and conceal increasingly bifurcated intra-racial class differentiation. And third, they contest dehistoricizing, unidimensional understandings of racism and white supremacy that disarticulate ideologies of racial hierarchy from their material bases in labor exploitation and regimes of capital accumulation.
However, their analysis has two primary weaknesses. First, they conflate liberal and materialist, structural theories of racism (and strategies of anti-racism). They are... very different. Analyzing how racial differentiation generates uneven distributional patterns of material and symbolic advantages is distinct from framings that focus on individual attitudes and intentions; and strategies of anti-racism that focus on how to redistribute power, wealth and resources are distinct from "anti-disparitarian" ones that focus solely on creating a colorblind meritocracy where the harms upon which capitalist societies are predicated are proportionally distributed along racial lines (such that disparities are dissolved). Second, they eject socially designated and institutionally reproduced racial status from their explanatory framework. In their view, race is not a causal factor in determining life chances and outcomes. They both analogize race, for instance, to "unicorns," thus rendering invisible the causal effects that racial hierarchies produce for differently racialized groups. This entails that they fail to account for the causally efficacious material dimensions of racism: how racial difference (among other modes of hierarchical differentiation) structures uneven access to life-sustaining goods such as healthcare, employment and housing in ways that produce unequal outcomes and forms of structural vulnerability stratified by race. Of course, race is not the only explanatory factor, and we should recognize that outcomes are significantly over-determined by other axes of inequality, such as class and citizenship status. But Reed and Michaels consistently throw the "materialist, structural theory of racism (and anti-racist praxis)" baby out with the "liberal and neoliberal theory of racism (and rhetorically militant but substantively reactionary anti-racism)" bathwater, which does irreparable analytical damage for any theory or praxis of emancipatory social transformation. Ultimately, what they offer is a bad, reductionist class politics.
July 15, 2023
A set of course corrections from the two anti-liberal intellectuals. Reed on the Rolling Stone podcast discussed the way books like *White Fragility* or *Stamped* push a "one dimensional look on the problems of our world." and that "Identitarian politics and explorations offers a way to rescue for the ruling class neoliberalism— Bernie and Trump and Hungary Poland and Bolsanaro and Boris Johnson. cries against this that are out of the bipartisan consensus or the third way. Neoliberals can help consolidate the only defensively morally norm for social justice is anti- disaparatism. A focus on equality in the market... the underlying thing is the attention being lavished in COLOR fuels counter-mobilization on the authoritarian right. Either way, it could mean anti racism is performing a function of racism from the past."
He and Walter Benn Michaels elaborate on these points in *No Politics But Class Politics*, which are pleas for sanity around a politicking toward a more equal world: eliminating the distraction of discussions of racial equality and attempting to organize around class, by establishing unions and broad political coalitions for change to fix income equality, redistribute wealth, and provide health care for all. As Reed once said elsewhere: "This is one of the things I’ve never understood about identity politics: how can you build solidarity by going around the room explaining how we are different?"
In untangling the racial "interpretive paradigm" used within politics, Michaels and Reed go point-by-point:
WBM points out the apparent lack of substance for change that is "pretty obvious when it comes to class. Kjartan Pall Sveinsson declares that 'white working classes are discriminated against on a range of different fronts, including their accent, their style, the food they eat, the clothes they wear' -- and it's no doubt true. But the elimination of such discrimination would not alter the nature of the system that generates 'the large numbers of low-wage, low-skill jobs with poor job security,' describes Bottero. It would just alter the technologies used for deciding who had to take them. And it's hard to see how even the most widespread social enthusiasm for tracksuits and gold chains could make up for the disadvantages produced by those jobs, " (43).
He also discussed how race is used both as decoder and cudgel, citing Karen and Barabra Fields book *Racecraft*: "'the discourse of anti-discrimination has so impoverished Americans public language for addressing inequality that we either understand poor white people as victims of racism (which they obviously aren't) or as trailer-trash responsible for their own plight by trying to blame someone else-- black people or immigrants'" and so "large numbers of white people experience themselves losing ground, while Trumpists tell them they're the victims of racism and liberals tell them they're racist," (108).
There is an anecdote about Ken Fraizer of Merck Pharma resigning from Trump's drug council on the basis of Trump's bigotry, and Trump's response was to Tweet out that now Frazier has time to "LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES." Though WBM finds the whole enterprise of racial discussion funny, as it distracts from the fact that neither Trump nor Frazier have any interest in doing that, nor in providing Medicare for all, though indeed both may have the power to do. So "it's what Frazier and Trump have in common that does the most damage to working class people and, incidentally, working class black people," (114).
Adolph Reed's comment about how anti-racism could end up doing for capitalism something similar to what slavery- an enterprising decision that justified unpaid labor in the US- and Jim Crow- a political regime that marginalized and provided cheap labor- both do. Justify its existence by using a take on race to further its aims, especially through corporate antiracism in hiring practices or employee training. Reed is wary of big, heartfelt words that group people into stereotypical voting blocs: "The symbols of community authenticity... well, in the first place, positing the community as an effective source of left agency provided you with no critical standard except authenticity in representing the aspirations of community. The 'community of course was an abstraction by definition, kind of like 'the masses'," (237).
He brings in these abstractions when talking about movies, where a typical plot will involved an "insensitive central authority" which today "corrals social imagination in that perverse ratification of inequality and bourgeois class power commonly euphemized as an abstract 'freedom' or 'liberty,'" (180). Reed attacks notions that cultural politics can achieve much through examinations of *Django Unchained* and *The Help,* explaining "it's as if Jim Crow had nothing to do with cheap labor and slavery had nothing to do with making slave owners rich. And the point here is not just that they get the past wrong-- it's that the particular way they get it wrong enables them to get the present just as wrong and so their politics are as misbegotten as their history," (157). A simplifying zeitgeist does what Margaret Thatcher preached, Reed says: "'economics are the method: the object is to change the soul.' Simply Put, she and her element have won."
He and Walter Benn Michaels elaborate on these points in *No Politics But Class Politics*, which are pleas for sanity around a politicking toward a more equal world: eliminating the distraction of discussions of racial equality and attempting to organize around class, by establishing unions and broad political coalitions for change to fix income equality, redistribute wealth, and provide health care for all. As Reed once said elsewhere: "This is one of the things I’ve never understood about identity politics: how can you build solidarity by going around the room explaining how we are different?"
In untangling the racial "interpretive paradigm" used within politics, Michaels and Reed go point-by-point:
WBM points out the apparent lack of substance for change that is "pretty obvious when it comes to class. Kjartan Pall Sveinsson declares that 'white working classes are discriminated against on a range of different fronts, including their accent, their style, the food they eat, the clothes they wear' -- and it's no doubt true. But the elimination of such discrimination would not alter the nature of the system that generates 'the large numbers of low-wage, low-skill jobs with poor job security,' describes Bottero. It would just alter the technologies used for deciding who had to take them. And it's hard to see how even the most widespread social enthusiasm for tracksuits and gold chains could make up for the disadvantages produced by those jobs, " (43).
He also discussed how race is used both as decoder and cudgel, citing Karen and Barabra Fields book *Racecraft*: "'the discourse of anti-discrimination has so impoverished Americans public language for addressing inequality that we either understand poor white people as victims of racism (which they obviously aren't) or as trailer-trash responsible for their own plight by trying to blame someone else-- black people or immigrants'" and so "large numbers of white people experience themselves losing ground, while Trumpists tell them they're the victims of racism and liberals tell them they're racist," (108).
There is an anecdote about Ken Fraizer of Merck Pharma resigning from Trump's drug council on the basis of Trump's bigotry, and Trump's response was to Tweet out that now Frazier has time to "LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES." Though WBM finds the whole enterprise of racial discussion funny, as it distracts from the fact that neither Trump nor Frazier have any interest in doing that, nor in providing Medicare for all, though indeed both may have the power to do. So "it's what Frazier and Trump have in common that does the most damage to working class people and, incidentally, working class black people," (114).
Adolph Reed's comment about how anti-racism could end up doing for capitalism something similar to what slavery- an enterprising decision that justified unpaid labor in the US- and Jim Crow- a political regime that marginalized and provided cheap labor- both do. Justify its existence by using a take on race to further its aims, especially through corporate antiracism in hiring practices or employee training. Reed is wary of big, heartfelt words that group people into stereotypical voting blocs: "The symbols of community authenticity... well, in the first place, positing the community as an effective source of left agency provided you with no critical standard except authenticity in representing the aspirations of community. The 'community of course was an abstraction by definition, kind of like 'the masses'," (237).
He brings in these abstractions when talking about movies, where a typical plot will involved an "insensitive central authority" which today "corrals social imagination in that perverse ratification of inequality and bourgeois class power commonly euphemized as an abstract 'freedom' or 'liberty,'" (180). Reed attacks notions that cultural politics can achieve much through examinations of *Django Unchained* and *The Help,* explaining "it's as if Jim Crow had nothing to do with cheap labor and slavery had nothing to do with making slave owners rich. And the point here is not just that they get the past wrong-- it's that the particular way they get it wrong enables them to get the present just as wrong and so their politics are as misbegotten as their history," (157). A simplifying zeitgeist does what Margaret Thatcher preached, Reed says: "'economics are the method: the object is to change the soul.' Simply Put, she and her element have won."
October 16, 2023
This book - collection of essays is highly repetitive but has one main theme. We focus too much on identity politics (racism) when we should be focused on economic inequality.
a
Circumstances meant that I had my first vote in 1966 in the UK as a Commonwealth Graduate Student in London. I observed that economic equality was much more present in the UK than in North America and that period was actually when both measures economists use to measure economic equality were the most equal they have been since World War II. The class distinction in England was pronounced as evidenced in conversation and even accent. The shift particularly since 1980 away from economic equality is observed but not as readily a part of the political discourse as it should be according to these authors. Some of this is outlined in contrasting the Labour Party before and after Thatcher.
Many of the fine points about the fact that emphasis on racism has meant there is some representation of blacks in CEO and professional roles but that means we do not focus on the problems a majority of blacks have of climbing out of poverty.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
a
Circumstances meant that I had my first vote in 1966 in the UK as a Commonwealth Graduate Student in London. I observed that economic equality was much more present in the UK than in North America and that period was actually when both measures economists use to measure economic equality were the most equal they have been since World War II. The class distinction in England was pronounced as evidenced in conversation and even accent. The shift particularly since 1980 away from economic equality is observed but not as readily a part of the political discourse as it should be according to these authors. Some of this is outlined in contrasting the Labour Party before and after Thatcher.
Many of the fine points about the fact that emphasis on racism has meant there is some representation of blacks in CEO and professional roles but that means we do not focus on the problems a majority of blacks have of climbing out of poverty.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
June 1, 2024
"No Politics but Class Politics" (NPBCP) is an immensely instructive compendium of works from two of the most outspoken critics of neoliberalism - and its nominal opposition. Both authors, with their similar styles of wit and borderline abusive, no-punches-pulled argumentative preferences, shed light on the polluted waters in which most current social "movements" unabashedly swim while economic inequality and ruling class domination increasingly prevails. The authors interrogate the origins of our contemporary "common sense" naturalization of inequality that is constantly reproduced in academic, economic, artistic, and discursive contexts - even (perhaps especially) the supposedly insurgent ones whose narrow disparitarian moral compass does the work, in concrete practice, of legitimizing capitalism's brutal exploitation of the masses of working people so long as it is not based on ascriptive discrimination.
August 5, 2023
This essays collection in this book offers a stark reminder to what times feels like a impass. We need to have more of these consersations in regard to race. class, sex and how they impact our lifes and the lifes of others.
Want to read
July 3, 2023Good book!
January 11, 2024
Really good collection of essays
December 31, 2024
To + „The Class Matrix” Vivka Chibbera i nagle nie możesz patrzeć na pOlSkĄ lEwIcĘ
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